DNA test confirms abandoned London boy is from Punjab

Hoshiarpur, Jan 4 (IANS) The DNA tests of an 11-year-old Sikh boy found abandoned in London last year have established that he belongs to a family near Tanda town in Punjab’s Hoshiarpur district and would be returning home soon, family members said Sunday.Several families, including those from Punjab and Bihar, had laid claim to the boy after he was found abandoned in London’s Asian-dominated Southall area.

Clearly a case of rampant illegal trafficking from Punjab, the boy, Gurinderjit Singh, had no idea how he landed in London and could converse only in Punjabi in the English-speaking country.

The confirmation of the DNA tests has been informed to Hoshiarpur’s Lok Sabha MP Avinash Rai Khanna by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee through an official communication.

“Our High Commission at London has informed that as per DNA report of Oct 27, 2008, Kuldeep Singh has been identified as the paternal uncle of Gurinderjit Singh,” the minister wrote to the MP.

“The child - at present under interim care of Ealing Council, London - has desired to return to India to stay with his paternal uncle. A local court has consented that the council should make plans for the child’s future and send him back to India,” according to the communique.

Kuldeep Singh, a farmer who lives in a village near Tanda town, 180 km from Chandigarh, had laid claim to the boy after media reports about him.

“We are overjoyed with this news. We are eagerly waiting for him to return and his ordeal to end,” Kuldeep Singh said from his village.

A court in London has decreed that the boy should be sent to India in the custody of his paternal uncle. It stated that the boy should not be handed over to his mother at all.

The boy is believed to have been abandoned by his mother, who entered Britain illegally through France. The boy’s father, who himself is an illegal immigrant in a European country, also could not come forward to claim his son for the risk of being deported.